Enabling a Smarter Energy World
Smart homes – Smart Metering technologies can function as an interface for smart homes devices. This would allow comprehensive home energy management, linking the heating and appliance controls and giving customers the tools to monitor their operation. This could enable the provision of buildings communications systems – with knock on effects for controlling heating, lighting, ventilation and appliance use.
Smart grids – Energy supply networks face huge challenges in the future with an urgent need to improve their operation and efficiency and fit them for our future energy needs. They will need to accept much higher levels of distributed and renewable generation. Smart Metering will be a key element of this transformation. Smart Metering will also allow the transmission and distribution of more energy within existing network capacity due to optimisation and better energy management. Demand management facilities will also give the network operators valuable tools to manage load on their networks.
Electric vehicles – Smart Metering will be an important element of any future use of smart electric vehicles. They will present a major load for the grid that must be managed when they are each charged or perhaps used as a power storage and source. Finally, electric vehicles also raise several new issues and create opportunities, namely how and when to charge or give energy back to the network independently of the location or time.
This is likely to change the way energy is consumed, measured and managed, and will affect energy supply contracts as well as stimulate new added value services.
